By Mike Wood
The standard moving light product, if there is such a thing, has become a hybrid profile spot fixture with a white light LED engine and dichroic colour mixing. Every manufacturer has their version and, it has to be said, they can all be very similar, particularly as many of those manufacturers and their products use a light engine from the same manufacturer, Appotronics, or one of the close clones. This isn’t altogether a new situation; back when we were using MSR discharge lamps (remember those days?), everyone used the same lamp. The difference now is that an LED light engine is more than just a lamp; a light engine defines a light exit size and includes all the primary optics so the options for customisation are more limited. This means that, as well as manufacturers sharing a lamp type, they also share aperture size, focal length, and a whole slew of other optical characteristics that make product differentiation extremely difficult.
This month, we are looking at a product that tries, albeit in a small way, to break out of that mould. The Chauvet Maverick Silens 2 Profile. Does it use an optical system similar to an Appotronics light engine? Yes, but it has been made specifically for Chauvet and has some tweaks. Most significantly perhaps, the Maverick Silens 2 Profile light engine runs with no cooling fans, ie. as silently as Chauvet can make it. I want to see what this means for
the product and, as usual, will run through it from LEDs to output.
Read the full review at: Lighting & Sound International
www.chauvetprofessional.com
Australian Distributor: Showtools www.showtools.com.au
